Jenkins nodded approval of the typical financier's evasion and hastened back to the private office, where the cross-examination of the coachman--a man above suspicion--was carried on by the other partners.
Amos Kidder had heard enough. He rushed out and, accompanied by the patient Robison, telephoned to his office this bulletin:
_W. H. Garrettson left his residence in Lexington Avenue near Thirty-eighth Street this morning as usual in his coupé, driven by James Lyman, his coachman. Lyman, who has been in the employ of the family from boyhood, declares positively that Mr. Garrettson got in as usual. He was smoking one of his famous $2.17 cigars and had all the daily newspapers. These and cigar-ashes were all that could be seen in the coupé when it reached the Wills Building, at Broad and Wall streets, where the offices of W. H. Garrettson & Company are. His partners are unable to say where the multimillionaire promoter is to be found. Mrs. Garrettson is equally positive that Mr. Garrettson left the house as usual. The butler saw him get in. Nobody saw him get out. What makes this remarkable is that Mr. Garrettson is punctuality itself and not once in forty years has he failed to reach his office before ten o'clock. His disappearance from the coupé is not thought to be a joke; but, on the other hand, there is no reason to apprehend a tragedy. "It is mysterious--that's all," remarked a prominent Wall Street man; "and mysteries are not always profitable in the stock-market!"_
"How long," inquired Robison, as Kidder came out of the telephone-booth, "will it be before the _Evening Planet_, with your account of the non-arrival of Garrettson, is out on the street?"
"Well," said Kidder, looking a trifle important, "if it had been any one else who telephoned a story of that importance time would be wasted in verifying it, but my story ought to be out in five minutes!"
"Well, maybe seven minutes--but that," said Kidder, impressively, "would be slow work for the _Evening Planet!_"
"Amazing!" murmured Robison, in a congratulatory tone. "And did you make it clear that there was no explanation for the non-arrival of--"
"I said it had not been explained as yet. A man isn't kidnapped in broad daylight in the city of New York--taken out of his own cab and carried away. If conscious, he would have shouted to the coachman; if unconscious, he would have attracted attention. It can't be done!"
